Oct

10

ACS Presentation on 2008-09 Supreme Court Opinions

Posted by: Joshua Pollack | October 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment

With the beginning of the 2009-2010 term of the Supreme Court, the Marquette Chapter of American Constitution Society for Law and Public Policy (ACS) spent a lunch-hour discussing some of the more interesting cases of the past 2008-2009 term. Leading the lunch discussion were Marquette professors Blinka, McChrystal, and Secunda.
Professor Blinka started the lunch discussion [...]

Oct

7

Searching for Negative Space in the Constitution

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | October 7, 2009 | 3 Comments

Some people dislike the game of soccer.  They observe the players running around on the field and it all seems like random chaos.  Soccer aficionados, however, are not focusing on the players.  They are watching the spaces in between the players.  These empty spaces ebb and flow, like waves in the ocean, creating momentary opportunities [...]

Sep

20

A Republican Form of Government

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | September 20, 2009 | 2 Comments

On September 17, I participated in the Constitution Day program at the Law School.  All of the presenters were asked to discuss one part of the United States Constitution that is often overlooked.  My choice was the “republican form of government” clause, Article IV Section 4, which reads as follows: “The United States shall guarantee [...]

Sep

8

Constitution Day Symposium on Judicial Elections

Posted by: Jessica E. Slavin | September 8, 2009 | 4 Comments

On Saturday, I ran a 5K in Stevens Point, in support of Justiceworks, Ltd., a nonprofit organization “dedicated to the advancement of programs and practices that secure right relationships between offenders, victims, and their communities” in Portage County.  My father lives and works in that community and asked me and my sisters to participate in [...]

Aug

31

Catholics on the Court

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | August 31, 2009 | 6 Comments

Three recent events have added a new wrinkle to a debate that has been taking place among legal scholars: what, if anything, does it mean to be both a Catholic and a Supreme Court Justice?
First, the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor has added a sixth practicing Catholic to the Supreme Court.  As a proportion of the [...]

Aug

27

Ashcroft v. Iqbal and the Pleading Standard

Posted by: Jay Rabideaux | August 27, 2009 | 3 Comments

Law professors teaching Civil Procedure this fall may have reason to revise their lecture notes covering the pleading standard in federal courts for the first time in a long time.  This pleading standard, as articulated in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) Rule 8(a), has presented a very low hurdle for plaintiffs since the [...]

Jul

24

The Umpire, the Wise Latina, and the Cabinetmaker

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | July 24, 2009 | 6 Comments

The confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor are over, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly negative.  The public tuned in expecting a discussion of the nominee’s qualifications and a debate on the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system.  What they got, instead, was a battle of metaphors.
Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee [...]

Jul

20

The Sotomayor Hearings — What We Can Agree On?

Posted by: Richard M. Esenberg | July 20, 2009 | 5 Comments

Here is something that we can all agree on. Maybe. Over at PrawfsBlawg, Howard Wasserman of Florida International says that the Sotomayor hearings have been “inane and meaningless.” This has been a widely shared reaction among liberal legal academics and lawyers. They are disappointed in (even if they are willing to excuse) her retreat into [...]

Jul

16

Commentary on Sotomayor Hearings

Posted by: Michael M. O'Hear | July 16, 2009 | 7 Comments

Paul Secunda has an interesting guest post on the ACS Blog regarding the role of the Ricci case in the confirmation hearings.  Meanwhile, over at the Federalist Society website, our former colleague Scott Moss is part of a lively ongoing debate on the hearings.

Jul

12

You Got the Wrong Guy

Posted by: Richard M. Esenberg | July 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Part of my job is to be engaged on issues of law and public policy, so I am usually happy to talk to the media and pleased when the law school’s clipping service picks up some brilliant comment that I have made and posts it to the school’s website. They miss most of them so [...]

Jul

6

Confrontation and Criminal Trials: What’s Actually in Play

Posted by: Daniel D. Blinka | July 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The long-awaited Supreme Court decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts finally came down on June 25, 2009.  See my prior post here.  Neither the majority opinion nor the dissent yield many clues about what took so long (this was the last case from the Court’s November sitting), and on the surface at least there is little [...]

Jul

4

Anatomy of an Op Ed

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | July 4, 2009 | 4 Comments

I authored an opinion piece in support of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court that was published in the June 28, 2009 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  You can read the piece here (and you can read a “dueling” piece authored by Rick Esenberg here).
 What follows is a deconstruction of my own [...]

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